Importing
If your books are already catalogued somewhere else, import them rather than retyping. All My Books reads the databases of the common cataloguing programs directly — you do not need the other program installed or running.
All My Books looks for other cataloguers when it starts. If it finds one, it offers to import from it once, with the file already located for you. In an empty collection every program found also gets its own link on the start panel — see How to create a new database. You can always do it later from the menu.
Importing from another cataloguing program
Choose and pick the program.
| Program | What to point at |
|---|---|
| Calibre | metadata.db in the Calibre library folder. Books, series,
tags, ratings, comments, covers and the paths to the book files come
across. |
| Book Collector | The .bkc database, or an XML export from Book
Collector. |
| BookCAT | The BookCAT database (.mdb). |
| Readerware | The database (*.rw4.data) or a Readerware backup
(.zip). |
| Alfa eBooks Manager | The Alfa database (.sdf or .mdb). |
| Sony eBook Library | kLibrary.xdb in the Sony Reader database folder. |
| MyHomeLib | user.dbs2 from the MyHomeLib data folder. |
| Booknizer / Medianizer | The database (.dbo or .dmb). |
Import adds books to the collection that is currently open. Import into an empty collection the first time, so that you can look at the result before mixing it with anything you have typed yourself.
Importing from a spreadsheet or a text file
For a list you made yourself, use or .
- Pick the file. Excel workbooks (
.xlsx,.xls) are read directly — Microsoft Excel does not have to be installed. - All My Books shows the file as a grid. Delete any header or junk rows and columns you do not need.
- Assign a book card field to every column you want to keep. Columns left unassigned are ignored.
- For a text file, pick the delimiter (tab, comma or semicolon).
- Click OK.
Import titles and ISBNs first, then run batch update with Unfilled only to pull covers, synopses and ratings from an online source: books with an ISBN are looked up by the exact number. That gets you a complete catalog from a bare list.
Getting a collection back from the mobile app
restores a collection that was sent to the phone,
including anything you added there. Either sign in to the same account you use
for export to the mobile device, or point the wizard at the
amb.zip file itself. This is also the way back if the computer
collection was lost and the only copy left is the one on the phone.
Lists from MyBookList.ru
An .ambx file is a book list exported from the Russian site
mybooklist.ru. Double-click it or drag it onto the All My Books window: a list of
the books with checkboxes appears. Tick the ones you want; you can also give them
a personal mark and number them as they are added. The book details are
downloaded from MyBookList.ru. Like the site itself, this window is in Russian
only.
See also Appending from another database for merging two All My Books collections.
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